very simple question

[stefoid]

Is a BG of 5 chariots legal? or must it be 4 or 6.

[marioslaz]

Is a BG of 5 chariots legal? or must it be 4 or 6.

4 or 6. BG must consist of an even number of bases. This of course in a single scenario or in a tournament.

[SirGarnet]

You will of course get odd numbers due to losses, which can carry over in campaign games. There is also a place for odd numbers to represent damaged or off-strength BGs in fine tuning scenarios.

[hazelbark]

Is a BG of 5 chariots legal? or must it be 4 or 6.

No.

As people said you are free to do what you like in scenarios or such. but strictly speaking in games designed around points and rules no. You may not buy odd numbers of bases except in the narrow case of supporting LF.

[DaiSho]

You will of course get odd numbers due to losses, which can carry over in campaign games. There is also a place for odd numbers to represent damaged or off-strength BGs in fine tuning scenarios.

Which begs the question:

If you create a scenario for lets say 'Early Gauls' vs 'Early Romans'. The Gauls are fighting a second battle in a scenario and so you give them two BG's of Chariots with 3 Chariots in each BG. In your minds eye you know that they started off as BG's of 6.

So:
1 - Are they one base away from auto-breaking?
2 - Do they fight with a -1 for 25% losses?

etc etc.

[SirGarnet]

It depends on the carryover rules, which I think should be contextual.

If they had no time to recover since the first battle and it went badly and should be shaky, I'd probably treat them as down from the original 6 and they would need to be treated gingerly. If they have regrouped and mostly recovered, as down from 4. If they were victorious and entirely undaunted, spoiling for a further fight, as a fresh understrength BG of 3.

There's also the question of whether weakened BGs should be consolidated - each BG represents a number of actual units, after all.

Cheers,

Mike

[DaiSho]

It depends on the carryover rules, which I think should be contextual.

If they had no time to recover since the first battle and it went badly and should be shaky, I'd probably treat them as down from the original 6 and they would need to be treated gingerly. If they have regrouped and mostly recovered, as down from 4. If they were victorious and entirely undaunted, spoiling for a further fight, as a fresh understrength BG of 3.

There's also the question of whether weakened BGs should be consolidated - each BG represents a number of actual units, after all.

Cheers,

Mike

Yes, true.

If they won the Field of Glory (Like that's going to happen with Gauls vs Romans... but anyway - lets pretend shall we?) you could also say that they go from 3 back up to 4 because of recovered chariots and horses. You may even want to drop them to 'average' because the new charioteers are less cohesive etc.

I've always thought (with scenarios) that at the very least 25% of losses should be replaced anyway. Losses aren't all 'dead'. Many of them decided it was time to high tail it, but if they are victorious then many will come back. Perhaps you could do:

Elite = 10% return (they mostly died to a man, the 10% are those who were injured but have returned)
Veteran = 25% return.
Average = 50% return.
Poor = 75% return (most of them ran away in the first volley).

Of course you then also have the side of the coin which says that impressed levees are going to keep running all the way home and NEVER come back . I guess it depends on the 'poor'.

Ian

[plewis66]

Elite = 10% return (they mostly died to a man, the 10% are those who were injured but have returned)
Veteran = 25% return.
Average = 50% return.
Poor = 75% return (most of them ran away in the first volley).

Of course you then also have the side of the coin which says that impressed levees are going to keep running all the way home and NEVER come back . I guess it depends on the 'poor'.

Ian

It would also feel a bit odd to effectively be penalised for being Elite!

[philqw78]

I think its a good idea that less elite survive, they would fight until more were dead/incapacitated.

Also how do BG achieve elite status? A short answer: Only Superior BG that took 50% casualties without routing become elite, that would also keep the amount of elite stands down in number during the campaign. Also these BG could not get any of there casualties back to increase their number.

[plewis66]

I can certainly see where the thinking lies with this.

Also to be considered, though, is the fact that fewer bases of inferior troops tend to actually die (i.e. suffer from death rolls, or are removed for being contacted by persuers). This because they auto-break earlier, and persuers tend to break off auto-broken battle groups, thus inflicting fewer base losses.

Granting inferior troops a greater rate of 'resurrection', coupled with the fact that more of them leave the field alive, could lead to a larger imbalance than anticipated.

I wonder if there is any historical evidence for the rate at which people were injured badly enough to remove them from combat, but not so badly it stopped them fighting in future battles? I suspect that this information may only be available for very few, if any historical armies, however.

In reality, I suspect that to get the resurrection rates workable will take a lot of play testing, and, preferably, a lot of simulations.

[marioslaz]

I can certainly see where the thinking lies with this.

Also to be considered, though, is the fact that fewer bases of inferior troops tend to actually die (i.e. suffer from death rolls, or are removed for being contacted by persuers). This because they auto-break earlier, and persuers tend to break off auto-broken battle groups, thus inflicting fewer base losses. [...]

We use a slight different system. For each base we roll a die 6 sided, but with difference survival score for casualties and routs. All casualties survive only with 6. Routs survive with 4-5-6 and you get:

+1 for winning side
+1 for superior/elite troops
-1 for poor troops

This rule was near the same with other tactical rules we used. With FoG I introduced another rule for demoralization of defeated army: it receive a number of attrition point equal to 1/4th of initial BGs number. If this army fight again in the campaign, it starts the battle with that amount of attrition point. If another army join to the defeated one and then they fight a battle, again they starts with that attrition point. An example likely clarify better:
One army of 8 BGs lose a battle, so it get 2 attrition point. Another army of 6 BG join the first one and they fight a new battle. The new army would break at 14 attrition point, but instead it breaks at 12 due 2 points accumulated from previous battle by the army with 8 BG. I must say that we play campaign which simulate just 1 year of combat (we use a campaign system like "Magna Graecia") and so we consider that the effect on morale of a defeat is a factor in our games.

[DaiSho]

It would also feel a bit odd to effectively be penalised for being Elite!

Yes, but in a campaign perhaps you would use your Elites as Elites. In the same sense that Napoleon didn't throw in the Old Guard at the first oportunity!

Ian

[DaiSho]

[quote="marioslaz]

+1 for winning side
+1 for superior/elite troops
-1 for poor troops

[/quote]

So, in essence the reverse of what I'm saying. More Elites survive even though they are the ones who are more likely to die on their feet than run away?

Ian